


Sherry

by bevinkathryn



Category: A Great and Terrible Beauty - Libba Bray
Genre: Alcohol, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-12
Updated: 2008-07-12
Packaged: 2017-10-24 19:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bevinkathryn/pseuds/bevinkathryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mrs. Nightwing tries to escape her problems, but even that has consequences. A night of reflections and resolutions. Oneshot, allusion to alcohol dependency.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sherry

**Author's Note:**

> Originally found [here](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4389440/1/Sherry) at my ff.net.

The world in which we live in can be a cruel and desolate place. With no one there to share your pains, with no one to hear your tears, it can seem as though it is you against the world. You are one person in a sea of persons, yet there are none around you. No one cares. No one listens. You are nothing.

I suppose it was when I realized this when I turned to sherry.

My days were an endless parade of curtsies, smiles, manners, diction. Nothing new, nothing exciting. I watched girls I taught blossom into ladies of society and felt their success in my veins, ripping me from the inside out while I smiled and pretended it was all alright. But nothing was alright. I was alone, I was stuck, and no one cared.

It started out slowly, an occasional glass when the pain was too much. My obsession with the soothing numbness that came with the drink grew like wildfire. But I didn't care. I was escaping from my painful nightmares, where I walked a busy street and saw my once beloved embracing his new woman, and that was all that mattered.

Soon I found more excuses to drink. The painting of Mrs. Spence had always plagued me with shame. She had been my mentor through finishing school, both in the arts of society and the mastery of the realms. And when I failed at the latter, she comforted me, gave me a life beyond failure, until she met her end within the walls of her very own school. Every day, I walked past that portrait, and the shame washed over me anew. How could I not want to escape that guilt? I turned to nothingness to ease the pain. And it was sherry that brought about the bliss.

Then there were my pupils, those golden girls with their whole lives ahead of them. They all had something I didn't have: hope. They could hope to leave my school, and marry well, and become the beautiful ornaments of the fashionable districts, while I was trapped in the very school I have once loved. I couldn't stand it. But sherry made the aches disappear.

One girl was worse than the rest. She came from great tragedy, the death of her mother. But when she walked into my presence, it was as though my past was standing before me. Her startling green eyes were the haunting memory of the hated traitor's own, the human monster that ended my mentor. It was all I could do not to send her away. That night, sherry helped me forget, forget my new student, and forget the woman she so reminded me of.

I was not prepared for the whirlwind that came with housing Miss Doyle. I was forced back into the life I had been denied, forced to protect the innocent from discovering the truth, which they had no hope of accepting. The effort grew tedious, and the drinking heavier. I sank into my sherry cocoon gratefully, letting my weariness fall away.

Which is why I sit here now, in my room with the ugly peacock feather wallpaper, drowning in the past. The glass of sherry is in my hand, the call of its stupor pulling me closer. The fumes of my long-time companion swirl about my nose, teasing me. I want it. I need it. My students are all abed, and Brigid is gone. There is no one here to witness my shame.

So why do I hesitate?

The glass of tempting liquid remains in my hand, untested, although everything in me is screaming for its spell. I need to disappear into that veiled land of nothingness where no one can bother me, where everything is whole. I need to feel complete again, something I have not felt for far too long. The drink calls to me, promising me all of this and so much more, if only I drink from it. But I find I do not want to succumb to my yearning. Nothing changes with the sherry, it only disappears for a time. I still wake up in the morning, with no husband, students to mold, and a portrait to walk by. Miss Doyle remains in my halls. What has sherry done for me?

Everything. Nothing.

It is a battle I know well, a battle that has been raging for some time now, a pull between the blissful nothingness and the shouldering of my burdens. Sherry has always won out in the end; its magical pull is too much to resist. And this only further depresses me, to see how far I have fallen. To see what I have become dependent on.

The sherry calls to me. It is such a sweet song, and I want to loose myself in that song, to accept what the sherry offers. A small voice in my head says it is not so, that I am only running away from my problems, but it is nearly drowned out by the overwhelming desire for my sweet friend, my one constant ally, the sherry.

I stare into the drink. In my mind's eye, I see Miss Doyle. Her determination, her bravery, her helplessness. She holds the secrets of two realms, the task of restoring the balance. Why is it that I must find solace in a drink, when she has so much more to contend with? I see the answer in my hand.

I am weak. Miss Doyle is strong.

But I can be like Miss Doyle. I can put my sherry down, and face the world. I need not be alone. As if it can sense my wavering the sherry renews its singing. I force myself to picture Miss Doyle again. The scent of sherry comes alive, making my head spin fuzzily. A slow grin spreads across my face. Yes, the sherry purrs, I can help you…just one sip…

No. I close my eyes against the pleas of my thirst, forcibly shoving the glass and its dangerous liquid away. The sherry sloshes furiously, spilling over onto the wooden desk. I stare at the small pool of heavenly liquid. I reach out a finger and trail it slowly through the sherry, letting it stain my skin. It lovingly caresses my finger, moving willingly around it. But I know it is a false tenderness, for its bite is poisonous, its call addicting.

It is this thought that guides my hand and the glass in it, turning it upside down over the wastepaper basket. I watch the sherry drain from the glass, seeing in it all of my problems. With the last drop, a sigh of relief escapes me. I have taken that first step. It is a freeing feeling. And I stand, placing the empty glass on the desk and walking away, leaving the sherry in a pool in the basket and denying the choking want burning away inside me.


End file.
